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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



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FRONTISPIECE 



POEMS BY 



PETER J. MALONE 



EDITED BY 

HELEN E. MALONE 

{HI8 DAUGHTER) 




NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON 

THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 
1909 



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Copyright, 1909, by 
THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 



©CI.A251429 



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CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Biographical Sketch 7 

Long Ago 15 

The Message from the Sea 17 

Farmer Ray 21 

Our Mary 23 

Rupert 25 

Mind 26 

The West Wind 29 

A-Fishing SO 

Do We Love the Sinful ? 32 

John Keats 33 

To Ernesdyl . . . / 37 

First-Love 37 

My Girl 39 

Ernesdyl 40 

Goethe and Frederica 47 

The Pencil 51 

A Thought 52 

RocKwooD Forest 53 

AsPHAsiA Percy 58 



'.''-^^Jk' .^*piv, 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Spirit of Poetry 61 

Brandenburg 62 

By the Sea 67 

A Morning's Ramble 67 

May 70 

Fossil Art 72 

Autumn . 73 

Always 74 

A Serenade 76 

Creations 76 

The Martyr Poet 78 

A Wish 79 

The 4rtist 80 

The Wood . 81 

The Poet's Dream 83 

The Golden Sheaf and the Unopened Bud 85 

Marcela 86 

Self Murder 90 

Resignation 91 

The Prisoner 92 

Fragments . 92 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



It has been with me a cherished desire that these 
relics of my father's poetic genius should one day 
be given to the world. Their publication (unavoida- 
bly delayed) has seemed a duty not from any mere 
filial feelingf'for that I might distrust; but because 
others most competent to judge of literary matters 
have also found in them the final outcome and flower 
of a genial and beautiful soul^ and have pronounced 
them genuine poetry. To cull two instances from 
many^ Dr. G. H. Sass^ able critic^ and author of the 
charming poems entitled " The Heart's Quest," in 
a letter to me not long before his death says, ** I 
have always believed that your father's poetic gift 
was of the highest and purest quality." And from 
the popular poet, Mr. Frank L. Stanton, comes this 
word of welcome, '* I haste to tell you how pleased 
I am that you are to edit your father's poems for 
publication. He was a true poet, whose work will 
live if the world can find it." 

That these poems may be placed within the ken 
of the literary public, and win for themselves, ac- 
cording to their own raison d'etre, an abiding place 
in its appreciation, is my hope in issuing this volume. 
A brief sketch of the author's life may, within its 
compass, throw some light upon his work 

Peter Jehu Malone, youngest child of Levi Stokes 
Malone and Mary Ray, was born in Charleston 

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



County, South Carolina, March 16, 1844. He early 
gave evidence of intellectual gifts, and was from the 
first a lover of books, and in youth and manhood a 
diligent and enthusiastic student. He began to write 
verses before his sixteenth year. 

At the breaking out of the civil war my father 
was only seventeen years old; but although so young, 
his ardent and chivalrous spirit longed to bear a part 
in the contest. He finally volunteered for service in 
the spring of 1862, entering the First South Caro- 
lina Regiment of Cavalry. This was at first sta- 
tioned in a camp of defence, guarding the coast of 
Carolina, a situation almost destitute of military ac- 
tivity. Here he remained for about a year, devoting 
his leisure to the reading and study so congenial to 
his eager and assimilative mind, while his poetic 
gift began to evince itself more unmistakably in 
verses showing a progressive growth, and improve- 
ment in expression. 

In 186s his regiment was ordered to join General 
Lee, and took part in the famous Maryland and 
Pennsylvania campaign. For our poet it was a fate- 
ful experience, for he was severely wounded in the 
desperate charge on the last afternoon of the battle 
of Gettysburg; and being in no condition for re- 
moval, was among those left by the retreating army 
on the field. He was captured and taken to David's 
Island, near New York^ where he neceived kind 
treatment, and upon his partial recovery was ex- 
changed. He again joined the army, but soon find- 
ing himself unable to endure active service, he 
applied for dismissal. The ball with which he had 
been wounded had never been removed, and was not 

8 



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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



only the source of imperfect health thenceforward, 
but the real cause of his death ten years later. 

He now spent about two years in Savannah, where 
he first taught in one of the public schools, and then 
became local editor of The Republican, mean- 
time studying law. He wrote much, and several of 
his poems were published in the city papers. 

In the early part of 1867, he became an inmate 
of the home of his friend. Colonel Benjamin Stokes, 
near Walter boro, S. C, at which place he desired to 
begin the practice of law; and while preparing for 
admission to the bar in South Carolina, became tutor 
to the eldest son of Colonel Stokes, in whom he 
foiuid a pupil of most congenial mould. The latter 
has often referred to the young teacher's superior en- 
dowment — his enthusiastic, genial, winning person- 
ality and his highly cultured mind. ** It was an 
inspiration," he says, ** to be in familiar fellowship 
with him." And again, " The old classic spirit 
seemed his native air. He loved books with a su- 
preme devotion, and sat at the feet of the masters 
of song with open heart and single eye. This was 
true of him, indeed, only increasingly so, whatever 
his post or occupation." 

My father began his professional career with 
every prospect of success. On June 3, 1868, he mar- 
ried Olivia Ann, siecond daughter of Colonel Benja- 
min and Mrs. Harriet K. Stokes. He had now 
attained considerable development as a poet, and 
from this time forward the best of his poetry was 
produced. This appeared from time to time in The 
Southern Magazine, The Rural Carolinian, and 
The XIX Century, and brought him to the notice 

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



of William Hand Browne, William Gilmore Simms, 
W. Watkins Hicks^ and other litterati^ from whom he 
received generous recognition and encouragement, 
and whose friendship he enjoyed. 

On March 22, 1870, a literary correspondence 
of great interest was begun between himself and Mr. 
G. H. Sass, a gifted young poet. Their lines in 
poetry were widely different, but they thoroughly 
sympathized with each 'other's work, and possessed 
that mental " diversity in likeness ** which gives 
peculiar piquancy and charm to a literary inter- 
course. The correspondence, which was highly 
valued by both, lasted /for three years, and was 
closed only by death. 

In the spring of 1870 my father abandoned the 
practice of law as being opposed to his literary 
tastes and pursuits, and accepted the associate editor- 
ship of the Charleston Courier (now the News 
and Courier). He had decided aptitude for jour- 
nalism, and undertook his new duties with enthusi- 
asm; but the work proved arduous, and about mid- 
summer a breakdown of health forced him to leave 
the city. Sometime after this he opened a select 
private school in Walterboro, whose duties permitted 
the leisure for literary culture that he craved. And 
now for a short while he lived more completely than 
ever the life of a man of letters. He read widely, 
and much of his poetry belongs to this time. 

But this " quiet, beautiful growth of mind " was 
not to continue uninterrupted. Ere long the de- 
pressed state of affairs which so peculiarly afflicted 
South Carolina after the war, affecting, ^as it did, 
every business enterprise, made him desire to try his 

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



fortune elsewhere. He had glowing accounts of 
prospects in the West from the letters of a friend, 
and on February 28, 1872, set out for Texas. There 
during the few remaining months of his life he de- 
voted himself mainly to teaching and journalism, 
and entered fully .into the various interests of the 
new and more active sphere. 

And now when the end is at hand, all at once the 
future seems to hold a brighter promise than ever 
before. Dr. F. Asbury Mood, founder of South- 
western University, had known my father in former 
days. He offered him the chair of English language 
and literature in the young institution, and it was 
gladly accepted. To our poet and his friends it 
seemed that this position would be one ideally suited 
to his peculiar tastes and talents; but on the very 
threshold he was stayed. On his way to George- 
town, the seat of the University, he was stricken with 
his last illness, and after ten days of suffering died 
in Austin, on the 18th day of September, 1873. 

Thus this rich young life was cut off in the midst 
of its days. He was only twenty-nine years old. 
From a tribute to his memory by Rev. Dr. J. Lemacks 
Stokes, I quote the following extract: 

" Mr. Malone had all the grace and courtliness of 
speech and manner characteristic of the ' gentleman 
of the old school.* He was a brilliant talker on al- 
most any theme. Into life's stern activities he threw 
himself with all the dash and chivalry of the cru- 
sader. He was a trenchant editorial writer, an in- 
spiring teacher, and an eloquent advocate at the bar. 
He entered upon all these paths of endeavor with 
zeal and success, but his heart was ever in his be- 
ll 



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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



loved poesy and the literature that surrounded it, 
and it seemed that, comparativiely speaking, he but 
played at other things." 

Of my father's poetry it does not belong to me to 
speak critically. I may call attention to its traits 
of kinship to other true poetry — its notable respon- 
sivieness to the influences of nature and the finer 
feelings of the heart, its reflection of personality, 
and that evident necessity of utterance which is born 
of inspiration. 

Of two poems of this collection submitted to .Dr. 
William Hand Browne for criticism in 1871, he 
writes thus : " I like your two poems much. No 
one can dispute your possession of the divine gift of 
song. I have written pieces musical, I know, in good 
taste, I think, and with some thought in them^ I be- 
lieve, but I see the diff'erence between such studies 
and the spontaneous effusions of a real poet." 

Mr. Sass, a critic by no means easy to satisfy, 
expresses this opinion of " Aspasia Percy " : "I 
have nothing but praise for your charming poem, 
some of the lines of which strike me as nothing short 
of exquisite. The two beginning * And sure he had 
been back,' etc., are specially fine, and so are half a 
dozen couplets which I could quote. The whole of 
the first soliloquy is admirable, and the word-painting 
throughout nearly perfect." And again, " One of the 
chief points in which it impresses me is its indication 
— so rare anywhere — of far greater strength be- 
hind." 

And in a late critical appreciation of my father's 
work. Dr. Henry N. Snyder, of Woff*ord College, 
says of him, " He has the true lyric note — ^lightness, 

12 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



grace, ease, and melody of versification. A reading 
of 'The West Wind/ 'Goethe and Frederica/ and 
' First Love,' will be enough to bring one to agree 
to the justness of this statement, and a quotation 
from the last named will give emphasis to it. . . . 
A poet who could ,write such verse as this deserves 
to be placed among those Southern poets who have 
contributed to < the lyric poetry of the nation." 

Space forbids to add more. It is sufficient to re- 
peat that from many difi*erent sources we have re- 
ceived encouragement to believe this collection 
charged with a message of its own to the literary 
world. 

Helen E. Malone. 
Walterboro, S. C. 

September 2, 1909. 



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LONG AGO 

Together^ hand-in-hand, we stood that eve 
Beneath the poplars, by the rock-browed spring 
That gushed in liberal coolness ; when the lad. 
Whose sun-hot labors fevered all his veins 
While ploughing on the side-hill, and whose song 
Rang into random echoes from the wood. 
And died like phantom voices on the slope, 
Came whistling blithely down the briery path. 
Plucking at every sudden turn a leaf 
To fright the chaflinch with the mock report 
Of gun or pistol, till as suddenly 
Within the shadow-marge of feathery gum. 
He first espied us, and drew back in fright. 
And scampered off like a wild thing o' the woods. 
As lightly-footed as the panting hare 
At twilight. 

Alas! the spring feeds now no rivulet; 
And that slight girlish form whose beauty fed 
My soul with the divinest light of love. 
Walks not beside me. Oh! I well recall 
That day: we had gone forth to see the fields. 
To drink the sweet wild melody of birds. 
And gather heart's-ease and wild violets. 
Where delicate moss climbed on the oozy banks. 
And bachelor-buttons grew in regiments 
Upon the tiny ridges. Then we came 
Beside the spring, wherefrom I scooped a draught, 

15 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Fresh bubbling to the basin, in a leaf, 

The largest from the lowest poplar bough, 

And doubled cup-like, giving her a drink; 

And saw with joy, by that chance look and shy, 

The color, like a wayward stealthy thing, 

Come o'er the Parian whiteness of her brow. 

As shadow over sunshine, and the whole 

Truth of her love came over me like light. 

But things are changed: the fountain is no more; 

The zig-zag path, grown into long disuse. 

Is now an ever-widening water-course 

After the floods; and sad events do stand 

Betwixt that time and this, lengthening the years. 

Yet much is still unchanged, untouched; the birds 

Are merry yet amid the poplar boughs. 

And the great poplars stand where erst they stood. 

And violets yet grow on oozy banks, 

And I have still a perfect picture, made 

By a great painter on that blessed eve. 

Of what was then this cozy interspace: 

The sparkling bubbles of the rock-browed spring; 

The spring itself, wherein the sunlight danced — 

And if the fancy made the spot a face. 

That spring would be a clear, bright, beauteous eye — 

The three majestic poplars, and the edge 

Of broken shadow, where the ploughboy stopped; 

And lastly that blithe silencer of birds. 

As in confusion blank he turned and fled — 

These livie upon the canvas of my mind 

In colors imprescriptible as light. 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

I 
I 

THE MESSAGE FROM THE SEA ] 

AN OLD MAN'S STORY 1 

I 1 

There's a little deserted port below^ j 

Where the tides run high from the farthest sea, | 

Where the gentlest of summer breezes blow^ i 

And the waves leap up on the shell-strewn lea; 1 

And this port was my home, when we both were | 

young, i 

Though now with age I'm toiling along; j 

And nothing it hath which it had before | 

Save the beautiful rhythm of the ocean's roar! 

II I 

Ah ! well, there's a music in my heart, too^ 

Which naught but the hand of death can still; ^ 

And when I gaze on the scene below, j 

From the leafy bosk to the treeless rill, >j 

My dim eyes are swollen with unshed tears, ] 

For I am a clod 'neath the feet of the years, j 

And the Traveller will leave me soon I know, ] 

For he waits not now, and my steps are slow. | 



III 

My steps are slow, but my heart is light, 
These old scenes wake its slumbering fire; 

I have not youth, but the skies are bright. 
And I have, thank God, my youthful lyre; 

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POEMS BY PETER J, MALONE 

And still I know where the village stood. 
By the farther skirt of the little wood. 
And the alcove — stranger, excuse the tear. 
But I'll tell the story — sit down and hear. 

IV 

It was threescore years, less ten, ago 
I stood on this spot with Genevieve. 
A bark had dropped her anchor below 

Where the waters are deep, prepared to leave; 
And the blithesome girl was going away 
Across the wide ocean, a year to stay; 
I could not speak, but the silent tears 
Gave vent to my heart's unuttered fears. 



Together we strayed in childhood's hour 
Where the small crystalline rivulet ran. 

As far through the beautiful forest bower. 
With bird and blossom the Spring began, (^) 

The grassy Spring; just a rustic rood 

From the rustic bridge hath often stood 

The noble girl by the trysting tree. 

In all her beauty betrothed to me. 

1 A friend, who has kindly read over my poem, returns 
it with the criticism that this line occurs in Swinburne's 
" Atalanta in Calydon." The fact is wholly coincidental. 
1 never read the work referred to, but have seen an 
extract from it, which I now have, together with all Swin- 
burne's poems that have chanced to come under my eye, 
and in none of them does the line occur. Besides I have 
distinct memory of the birth of the thought in my own 
mind.--P. J. M. 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

VI 

The old year went, and the young year came- 

How often our lives are typed in these ! 
And the circling sun, whose orient flame 

Shot shaft-like up from the shoreless seas; 
And Autumn's death, and Winter's gloom, 
And Spring's return with bird and bloom. 
And gold-cased wings of buzzing bees 
That glittered o'er the flowering trees. 



VII 

Ah! oft in those hazy years agone, 

I would take in my own her dimpled hand. 
As we came to a lusty root or stone. 

And steady her baby steps, and stand 
Like a knight in blazing greaves and helm. 
In the shade of yonder blanching elm. 
Then young like me; when the sun was set. 
We braided the mosses with violet. 



VIII 

And oft we gathered the chestnut boughs, 

And chestnut burs in the chestnut groves. 
And watched in the neighboring clover cows 

All browsing about in friendly droves: 
And saw in the shallows above the ridge 
The silver trout glide under the bridge. 
And out again in the sunbeam far. 
Like the fitful wink of an evening star. 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

IX 

And when at the dance in after days 
I took in my own her fairy hand. 
And saw her dazzle the envious gaze 

Of all the beauty in all the land; 
And heard the music, all hushed and clear. 
For her twinkling footfalls music were; 
And saw her maidenly figure move. 
My heart bowed down to the Goddess, Love. 



Then a day was set for the marriage rite, 

But when 'twas yet by a month away. 
The beautiful eye lost half its light — 

The step was heavy in middle-May: 
A demon disease had touched her form 
(Not even the queenly are free from harm) 
And the doctor thought a Southern sky 
Would re-illume the fading eye. 

XI 

So the bark set sail from the shell-strewn coast, 

I saw, far away, the sails' last dip; 
As peerless a form as the world could boast 

Had passed o'er the deck for a halcyon trip: 
A halcyon trip! ah! well, but a day, 
A^ month, and a year sped slowly away. 
And nothing was heard of voyage or boat. 
Till a cask in the alcove was found afloat; — 
'Twas opened ; it gave me the tale I give, 
"A farewell to Willie from Genevieve." 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

XII 

IVe travelled far, but my heart is light. 

These old scenes wake its slumbering fire; 
I have not youth, but the skies are bright; 

And I have, thank God, my youthful lyre. 
While I haste to a far, eternal rest. 
O'er the mount of gloom, thro' the vale of mist; 
To the heaven of love, I must believe. 
When I think of the angel Genevieve. 



FARMER RAY 

EzEKiEL Ray, the farmer, came last week 
To see our Adam ploughing in the rye; 
He rode his little sorrel filly, Jude, 
Whose shining neck, curved to a saucy bow. 
And beautiful lithe limbs contrasted strange 
With the good farmer's mighty arm and hand. 
And coarse brown leggins snugly buttoned up — 
" Well, Adam, that's a noble yoke of thine ; 
I like them best of all for draught — Ah, look! 
The red one's neck is galling with the yoke; 
Rest him a little; better far to lose 
A little time than that he work in pain; 
I never could endure the sight of it. 
Or of the farm-horse poor and broken down." 
And here the farmer looked on freakish Jude, 
Standing her best to please his partial eye. 
** Yes, Adam, well your father knew my stock. 
And how I loved a trim symmetric horse 
With free unbroken spirit. Once I knew 
A serving man who came to me from town, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Cracked up for ready knowledge of the horse; 

(I well recall he had a pocketful 

Of commendation from this man and that 

As to his art of training, and the like. 

Also for usefulness about disease) 

But somehow I liked not his talk — a brag 

I never could endure — and he was one; 

I marked that down : * a true man tried/ I said, 

* A man of work and worth, talks modestly. 

Not calling the thing done a miracle 

That no man living but himself can do. 

But letting the thing done speak for itself/ 

But he seemed reckless, and his little eye 

Now grew irresolute beneath mine own. 

And I distrusted him, but took him in. 

Distrusting more my own poor blind distrust; 

Well, sure enough, a week had scarcely passed. 

When late one evening Zekey came to me 

With news that two-year-old had broke her leg. 

Training; — and when the all-accomplished came 

Late in the night with his official tale. 

The brute was drunk, and in the moment's wrath 

I hurled him, head and heels, into the night. 

And never saw him more." 

** You served him right," 
Said Adam, lifting up the brightened mould, 
" Such cruelty deserved its punishment." 
" And truth he got it," said the Farmer Ray, 
His grey eye flashing lightning to the thought. 
" And so we spliced and bound the broken limb. 
And gave it daily 'tendance — ^now and then 
Turning the colt upon the sward to graze. 
And so with tender care she throve and grew 

22 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Into a beauty^ all except that leg^ 

On which^ though seeming strong, she slightly 

limped 
Long as she lived. I put her by for brood. 
And never worked her once; and she was tame, 
Yet full of spirit — all my horses are — 
And this Miss Jude is her great-granddaughter. 
And very like her, too; free as the air. 
Moving as if she owned the earth and stars; 
Look at her form! — ^And is it not superb — 
Is it not poetry — grand, beautiful? " 
So the kind farmer, lighting, cracked his whip. 
Whereat Miss Jude shot like a flash of light 
In one short circle, lessening thro' her gaits. 
Then put her delicate mouth within his palm, 
And lightly falling on her knees, remained 
In waiting — 

" Your horses are good blood," young Adam said. 
As Farmer Ray turned half around to go — 
" Ha, ha, just there you are in error, boy; 
More's in the plenty of the farmer's grain. 
Than in the goodness of the filly's blood." 



OUR MARY 

She went in through the orchard gate at dawn. 

With frock tucked up, and left arm basketed; 
A drove of pigs ran from the fenced lawn. 
Lustily squealing — ^white, blue, black, and red; 
Then came a huge ram stately from the shed; 
As tho' he'd enter in no race with swine. 
Or wishing to be free of crinoline; 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Expressing thus a silent Jewish scorn. 
Or love of freedom, better far than corn. 
Now, gathering up her robust arm, she held 

The oaken basket closer, as if she 
Her finger-tips to the white breast would weld. 

While with the other hand she shook the tree. 
The large, ripe apples dented the wet earth. 
Not falling with a bounding glee and mirth. 
But with (}ull, heavy thuds, like great round drops 
Of summer rain amid the thirsting crops; 
And onward to the other trees she hies 
With cautious steps, for, until clear sunrise. 
The long weeds are low bent with laden dew. 
Which no neat maiden would walk careless through. 
She fills her basket with the golden fruit. 
Leaving the long-beard standing gravely mute. 
And walks back to the dairy, a brave girl. 
Who keeps the farmyard in a ceaseless whirl 
Of duty-doing. On the dairy shelf. 
Where no one may put hand except herself. 
Those speckless cedar pails attract the eye; 
Within that portal no o'er-cunning fly 
Ever took lodging for a single night. 
Nor could an ant escape her faultless sight 
For one sweet cozy moment's space to stand 
Amid the allurements of that promised land 
Of actual milk and honey. But away 
To other rounds of labor as the day 
Grows up with added radiance: hens to nest 
About the brushwood on the upland crest — 
The greenly-hidden summit of the hill. 
Where also lambs lie by the languid rill. 
Deep couched, in kindred gentleness, awhile 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Alike from sun-heat and the fiercer guile 
Of hunger-flame protected. Thus her work 

Extends even to the woods and fields anear; 
Hunting the truant calves thro' morning mist. 

When the first bluebird sings the new-born year; 
And if one item she omit or shirk 

Night hath no rest in its deep wings for her, 
In dream of marriage-bells or lover's tryst. 

RUPERT 

RuPERT^s young heart had known poetic joys. 

That strengthened into blessings with his years; 

And now, in his first manhood, he looked back 

On the mysterious beauty of the past. 

All finished and divided from his life. 

Like some strange being in another world. 

As poets see the future. There was one 

Among these recollections, that he loved 

Most tenderly to call up in his mind. 

When rosy childhood hung upon his steps. 

With joyous laughter and sunshiny tears; 

Tears with more April than December in them: 

His father, a stout rustic carpenter. 

Who built one half the village cottages, 

Now, in his son's fifth year, was building one 

For Farmer Adams, on the little hill, 

A half-mile from his own hut, 'mid the pines. 

And all day long did Rupert play near by. 

With block and board, and wooden saw and adze. 

And dream of when himself should build a house. 

While, in his heart's heroic pride, he saw 

25 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

* 

The workmen deftly spring upon the joists, 
With rafter, or with wainscot, at the end, 
And merry clang of hammers that awoke 
Melodious echoes in his boyish heart; 
Or roused the artist in him by some touch. 
Some perfect piece of joinery, which show'd 
The plastic hand, untaught, but natural. 
Of his rough father. And it was his joy. 
Anxiously waited for from early morn. 
To bear at noon his father's humble mess 
Of boiled potatoes, in the antique dish. 
Ere yet he could surmount the new-felled pines 
That hemm'd the narrow pathway by the stream; 
So that, with rent frock and wet feet, he came 
Before his father, whose scant praises were 
Made sweeter by his scolding; and he said 
Rupert would make a better carpenter 
Than he was, for he noticed in the boy 
His mother's apt, neat way, which promised well; 
And he would give him learning, if his gain 
Next year were greater. But each after year 
His fortune fell; and soon he failed and died; 
And Rupert's mother, with her needle, made 
The means that made him greatness. 

MIND 

I HAVE a little fenced place 

To sit in through the April days, 

Where violets on the dewy beds 

Bend low their meek and reverent heads. 

And pinks are grouped where creepers run 

Like children playing in the sun, 

26 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

As though amid the twisted vine 

They sought the sweetest spots of shine. 

* "je- * 

One morning while with easel here 

I sat down in my artist-chair, 

The golden sun upon the plinths 

Lit up the woven hyacinths. 

And two young girls in summer frocks 

Ran out beyond the hollyhocks. 

With feet like pearls upon the rocks. 

And then I thought how strange it is 

That such a mighty world as this 

To millions should be little more 

Than trees that grow about their door. 

Upon which birds of passage light. 

To rest them for a single night! i| 

* ^ * j 

A peasant standing by his cot I 

On the hereditary plot. 

Gazes around the distant slope. 

In pride of unambitious hope: 

The space within that sedgy rim 

Is all the universe to him. 

Such is the body's paltry sight 
Beside the mind's celestial flight. 
Which spans the limits of the suns 
And takes in every age at once. 

* * * 

Now, oftentimes through ancient France 
I roam, a Templar of romance, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Or in the wilds of Brittany, 

I practise with its savagery 

The antique art of archery; 

Or stopping drink the winey light 

Of sweet Proven9al homes at night. 

* * * 

But oft I find no full release 

Save on the glorious soil of Greece; 
Where through Idalian groves I walk 
With Pericles, in genial talk 
Of that Milesian maid who came 
From fair Ionia, and whose name 
The Muses wreathed with living flame; 
Till turning by some clear, sweet brook 
That winds through many a reedy nook, 
I silent stand a moment by 
To see the frightened minnows fly 
From fiercest water-hawks, that spring 
Swift as the flash of feathered wing 
Along the shadowed limbs of pine 
Black in the pure waves crystalline : 
But while I look and muse on these. 
Where are thy thoughts, great Pericles? 

* * * 

And sometimes on my little dais 
I spend sweet twilights in this place. 
With the great dead whose thoughts alive 
Their very forms and mien revive: 
Italian Dante, whose dread frown 
Is nobler than a monarch's crown; 
Beside whom, but a niche below. 
Sits throned the mighty Angelo, 

28 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

The prince of Art, whose august name 
Nor age nor land may fitly claim. 
With Raffael and Da Vinci set. 
First stars in his pure coronet; 
And heroes come with martial sign 
From ranks of Guelph or Ghibelline, 
In geste of passion, as if life 
Were no just bound for noble strife. 
* -x- * 

But sweeter forms and gentler eyes 
Come to me from the evening skies: 
John Keats, the bud of English art. 
Bearing the wound of envy's dart; 
And Wordsworth, though but lately gone. 
The sire of greater Tennyson; 
And Shelley, whose wild music breaks 
Wherever love devotion wakes. 
Like zephyrs o'er the Northern lakes. 
Or wounded swans that singing fly 
Unseen amid the Southern sky. 
•X- •» -x- 

Such as have felt these friendships, such 
As know great Nature's genial touch, 
Though poor, unfriended, outcast, blind, 
May boast the sovereignty of Mind. 



>r 



THE WEST WIND 

I 

The West Wind sings through the yellowing wheat 
A song like the rustling of angel's wings. 

And over the woodlands wild and fleet 

To the meadows below the West Wind sings. 

29 



POEMS BY PETER J, MALONE 



II 

The West Wind sings through the dreary pines. 
The fleet West Wind at the golden dawn — 

Sings to the bees in the woven vines — 
To the lambkins skipping about the lawn. 

Ill 

And spirit-like through the bearded rye. 
Now twisting softly with breathing wings, 

Like the moan of rivers or earthquake's sigh. 
O'er hill and valley the West Wind sings. 

IV 
The West Wind sings, when the scytheman comes. 

Funeral hymns for the falling wheat. 
And shames the ragged gleaner that hums 

With its musical cadence soft and sweet. 

V 

And gently the gentle West Wind steals 
Through the bower of the beautiful Elaine, 

With a music as sweet, and half as real 
As the silver voice of an April rain. 



A-FISHING 

At the early dawn across the wold 
We slipt 'mid the sunrise splintered gold, 
That tipt and spangled the autumn leaves, 
Which then dropt down by the million-fold. 
And shooting aslant the gathered sheaves, 
Light-rosed the rugged mountain eaves. 

30 



POEMS BY PETER J, MALONE 

Then over the hedge by snow-white huts, 
Beyond where a violet headland juts, 
We passed by the chest-trees branching gay. 
Now million-eyed with their blinking nuts. 
By the flashing brooklet's frisky way. 
Where the lowing cattle leisurely stray. 

* -x- * 

A league below, where the trees seem stackt 

Against the sky, is a cataract, 

O'er which like a bourne the brooklet leaps 

With volume burning bright and packt — 

From rock to rock precipitous sweeps 

To the lake's fair breast, and gently sleeps. 

* * * 

It's thither we go with flying feet 

By the chestnut boughs, through falling wheat — 

Gayly and deftly, Helen and I; — 

Where the waters are spread in a glassy sheet 

And map the beautiful morning sky. 

With its winged armies tramping by. 

* * * 

There light through the lichens tenderly falls, 
On the tops of cumulus bramble walls. 
And now as we near the crystal brink, 
A vagabond fish-hawk loudly squalls. 
The hare that timidly came to drink 
Hops ** pit pat " off* if we do but wink. 

* * * 

All nature, in brightest robes arrayed. 
Is buzzing and blooming in sun and shade, 
The gold-finned fishes gambol and slide 

31 



POEMS BY PETER J. M ALONE 

« 

In shallows where craggy rocks are laid, 
Now shiver and curvel sjid glance and slide 
In the sunbeams falling deep and wide. 

* * -x- 

Thro' the livelong day we dropt the hook 
In coziest corners of rock and nook. 
Which coverts of greatest fishes are^ — 
Corpulent nobles and lords of the brook, 
The impudent jack with the blazing star, 
And that greedy nondescript, the gar. 

* -Sf "Sf 

Now all save the insect hum is still. 

Like a Sabbath eve: far up the hill 

We wander with tackle, lithe of limb. 

And back again by the sloping hill 

Whence the dot-like huts look pale and dim. 

And the sun sits clear on the western rim. 

* * * 

And here we call to the lowing herd. 

And watch the flight of the evening bird; 

Then gather our tackle and fishes three. 

Which flutter and faint on the yielding sward. 

And quietly take our way with glee 

Back under the moon to Enerslie. 

DO WE LOVE THE SINFUL? 

It is not prejudice we hate. 

It is not little human sins; 
For every life that's good or great 
In error's nursery begins; 

As it grows, they larger grow. 
The seed, the tree of death below. 

32 



POEMS BY PETER J, MALONE 

Sweet violets blossom in the wood^ 

Yet spiders build their homes within; 
And so earth's beautiful and good 

Are born and bred and die in sin: 
We pluck the bloom^ the insect leaves. 

As sin when God new being gives. 
And in the embryotic flower. 

Which makes a rosy peach for June, 
When flushed to life in that young hour. 
The worm begins to live as soon. 
Increasing day by day its size, 
Till nature triumphs and it dies. 
* * -x- 

Oh! give me then a kindly eye, 

A tongue to utter kindly words, 
A heart full all of sympathy. 

And blithesome as the little birds. 

Which, hating, will forgive and bless. 
Just as 'tis mortal, more or less. 



JOHN KEATS 

I 

My thoughts to-night 
Marshal to music of a grander tone 
Than when in moods more light; 
My wonted gloom hath for the instant flown. 
And I am glad for one short hour to own 
The tender passion, in ethereal flight 
Won only; for a majesty. 
The sole sweet mastership of my own mind, 

3$ 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

And charmed being, bright with poesy, 

(Since all low things are surely left behind) 

Expands within me like God-given power, 

A new-born life in some celestial sphere; 

And new thoughts haunt me, known but to this hour 

And so my inner sight is heavenly clear. 

II 

O, sweet the spell that holds a passing sway 
Upon my wayward thought, and gives my mind 
Power to inform old speech with genial ray, 
A vital spark whereby we haply find 
Creative newness in the spirit mould; 
So with weak human hands we clutch and hold. 
And build immortal barriers to arrest 
His eager steps, knowing that he doth lack 
Wherewith to conquer spirit while its guest. 
Feasting upon clay frailties in the dark. 
And fixing on all substance his one mark. 

Ill 

Alas ! low world. 

Little beside the battening beast we see 
In thy coarse, rugged features. Poetry 
As pearls to thy swine-hoofs, we daily know; 
Nor will the young bud in thy bosom blow. 
Since in its soil there is no tenderness. 
Without which only sternest plants may grow. 
Devoid like thee of inner loveliness. 
And all communion of the spirit sweet. 
Wherein the angel and the human meet. 
In those loved places suited to the tryst, 
Holily veiled and curtained by a mist, 

S4 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Heavensent, and guarding from all earthly ken 
What none may see who are no more than men. 



IV 

Thus fare the sons of genius on thy breast, 

O, unmaternal world! not so of eld. 

When music-breathing passion lightly quelled 

All dissonance, and gently sank to rest. 

And thick God-thronging slumber, for an age, 

Thy hoary head. And then a holy rage 

Possessed the conscience, and much tenderness 

Nourished a mighty progeny of men. 

Plain, noble-minded, all unselfish then. 

Not sated with vile luxury, nor the less 

Able to feel and know the honied charm 

Of human intercourse, because imlearned 

In caustic thrusts to do the helpless harm. 

Or such low knowledge as that wealth not earned. 

Or basely earned, hath sweeter gifts of joy 

For its possessor. 



O, spirit sweeter than the subtle being 
Of June's embodied effluence, which seeing 
The poet's fervent worship and adoring 
While he amid the fragrant clouds is soaring. 
Listens a moment to the soft renewing 
Of honied vows, and all his gentle wooing; 
Then buttoning up her dainty little kirtle. 
Coyly evanishes amid the myrtle. 
And elder stalks that make a cozy bower, 
Into the whiteness of the laughing flower. 

85 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

VI 

Alas! young dreamer; had he drunk to fullness 

Ethereal joyance in Elysian coolness, 

He had not got a draught half so exquisite 

As from that dreamful, all-uncertain visit. 

And so he pines through all the golden Summer, 

Hoping to see, or at the least, hear from her. 

Till Autumn makes the gold appear more golden. 

And former new things now become quite olden: 

The droning nighthawk shows a fresher brede, 

And grass pods open with their ripened seed; 

The nightingale hath now a richer note. 

As if he poured the moonlight from his throat. 

Then hopeful love gives up her potent place 

To one less eager but of larger grace. 

Sorrow-subdued in all her perfect form, . 

Less bold in port, less selfish and less warm. 

And thus kind friends believe the poet dying 

Who see him on sweet beds of moly lying. 

Weaving his subtle fancies for the Autumn 

To catch winged thoughts, or after he has caught 

'em 
Observe the wordless pleasance of his smiling. 
Beyond the artifice of low beguiling. 
And know he dwells within a world ideal. 
Freed from the trammels of this human real. 

VII 

But whereso'er he dwelt, the beauteous form 
Came never more, in sunshine or in storm; 
And since the zephyrs brought no message from her. 
He went to seek her on the wings of Summer. 

36 



POEMS BY PETER J. MA LONE 



TO ERNESDYL 

There is music here forever. 

As the dull, calm twilights grow. 

Like the rhythm of an ancient river 

From the hills of eternal snow. 

Yes, ever in strains of sadness. 

The winds go moaning loud. 

Or burst in vehement madness 

From the breast of a passing cloud; 

'Tis heard when the sunrise shafts of gold 

Hint of the near approach of morn. 

And then when the day is growing old. 

And gildings the western sky adorn. 

Sweet Ernesdyl! though thy soil may be 

Un genial to pink or eglantine. 

Yet nature atones in giving thee 

Music eternal, music divine. 



FIRST LOVE 

At eve we walked upon the soft 
Brookside, where birds with folded wing 
Sat drowsily within the croft, 
And silent heard the cuckoo sing. 
* * ^ 

We were but two — a sudden flush 
Cast o'er her cheek its soft demurs. 
And I had vowed, — ^but read a Hush! 
In those unfathomed eyes of hers. 

37 






POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Blest tyranny of love supreme! 
O, stars of glory absolute! 
Potential thro' the vaguest dream. 
Most meaningful when wholly mute. 

* * <x- 

The sweet dusk came, and thro' the copse 
We walked wherever fancy led, 
Where bees in tiny flower shops, 
Mixt, musical, their golden bread. 

* -x- * 

Then fast the lotus-drowsed night. 
With autumn ripeness in the breeze. 
Came on the gathering wings of light. 
And clothed with phantasy the trees. 
•X- -x- ^ 

And peckled night-hawks, passing by. 
Skimmed near us o'er the border weed: 
Just half-revealing to the eye 
The lustre of their light-bathed brede. 

* * * 

And from the gloaming hills the flocks 
Strayed down the winding meadow path. 
Yet kept the shadow of the rocks. 
Cropping the tender aftermath. 

« 4f "X- 

But still within her rosebud mouth 
Slept fast the talismanic *yea'; 
Or, if she murmured aught, the South 
With elfin art bore all away. 



38 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



MY GIRL 



I HAVE a girl with wide blue eyes^ 
And locks that sun her brow like morn, 
When young Aurora's in the skies 
The moment after she is born; — 
Her hand is like a sea-shell — win it 
O, fame! it has a music in it. 

II 

You may have seen a little copse 
Lie close upon a field of thyme, 
Of evening when the fresh dew-drops 
Come on the briers before the rime, 
While yet the softest light's aglow 
Upon the distant crest of snow. 

Ill 

And how the sweet brown shadows pass 

Over the little gloaming wood 

In dainty contrast to the mass 

Of dimpled light, like richest blood. 

In jocund spots about the mead — 

Such is her fame and such her head! 

IV 

And wreathing her such light we find — 
A human light; yet all may guess 
The heavenly graces of her mind 

39 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

From her sweet form's mere slenderness. 
And mystery! the dimple's more 
Upon her cheek than Eastern lore! 



How often have I dropped, when she 
Came near me, pen and book and all 
This earth's frail, grief-fed poesy — 
Things set to sale upon a stall — 
And richest draughts of passion quaffed. 
If she but idly spoke or laughed. 

EENESDYL 

Old John of York would have me paint for him 

An every-day-life picture of a farm 

Amid the mountains, putting overhead 

Sweet curves of cloud upon the ocean blue. 

And green-brow'd hills, and reedy banks near by. 

Well, I shall try, if power be in my hand. 

To sketch it full and firmly. Ernesdyl, 

The home of Irvin Ernes, stands among 

The neighboring cliffs of that blue mountain range 

That bolts the Carolinas; and whatever 

Of Nature's handiwork the heart could claim 

To fill the eye with beauty, or to lift 

The mind into the presence of its God, 

The leafy down in its rich dusk enfolds; 

A pretty cot, and silver cascades round. 

In circle so they make sweet melody. 

That drowns the note of April's whip-poor-will. 

And lulls to quiet in the orient light 

Of the full harvest moon, and struggling up 

40 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

- 

Against its liquid murmurs^ swells the shout 
Some lusty calf-boy sends upon the night, 
To fright the goblins from his haunted walk; 
While through the openings of the down is seen 
The torchlight flaring o'er his dusky form. 

Now to this sunny-hearted spot I went 

To spend my holiweek last autumn, John; 

For Irvin sent me pressing messages. 

Praising the goodness of his streams for fish; 

And telling how, among the gentle hills. 

That nestle near the lofty Mavis cliffs. 

Red foxes made their city, and wild deer. 

From antler'd buck to speckled fawn, their range. 

And Irvin being a veteran of the chase. 

Oft standing in his yard he hears a blast 

Of bugle wound among the spongy peaks. 

And suddenly his heart beats quick — his eye 

Bums for a moment with its earlier fire; 

The forty years of gathered snow glide down 

From his bent shoulders like an avalanche, 

And once again erect in youth he stands. 

And so he stood that hazy autumn mom. 

The winny fatness of the sealed year 

Shot mellow-hearted joy in every breast. 

Just as the genial sun of April strikes 

Into the twigs a life of buds and blooms. 

The first day o'er the farm we walked to see 
Ungathered grain borne down by golden weight. 
And stacks of hay made like a millet-top. 
Seven in a row, put up the day before; 
And in the balm of golden-hooded eve, 

41 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

We tripped across the newly-shaven sward^ 

From whence the lark, with labor-lagging wing. 

Drifted away upon the slow-paced winds. 

With that blank, aimless " anywhere " of flight. 

By which we know bereavement e'en in birds. 

And on our steps ten superannuate hounds. 

To whom at intervals old Irvin spoke 

In a quaint strain of doting tenderness. 

Hung like curlews upon the western wind; 

Now falling helpless clods betwixt our feet; 

Now sounding horn-like when some ruthless briar 

Spurr'd into quicker life the languid file; 

While Irvin, looking back the narrow path. 

Expectant of a coiled rattlesnake. 

In covert of the dappled undergrowth. 

That did the mischief, but of course in vain. 

Then next we came upon the pasture gate. 

And saw within the pasture noble kine. 

Whose well-filled skins reported of the grass 

They fed upon for nearly half the year. 

And by the gate two milk-white year-olds stood. 

Slender as ash shoots in the month of May; 

And when the gate was open'd, down they ran. 

Like uncurbed coursers footed with the dawn. 

O'er their accustom'd pathway to the lake, 

Leaving the herds, now group'd and motionless. 

Save here and there a straggler grazing still, 

Far back against the shadows of the down. 

Here to our left the lucid rivulet 

Stole round an elbow with a quiet lull. 

And leaped o'er gentle cascades with white feet. 

Till with the sweetest girlish grace she stept 

Into the crystal brook and disappeared. 

42 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

And now by devious course we wound beyond 

A little copse, known as the Open Hand, 

Whose outstretched finger, fram'd of apple trees 

And lithe-limb'd pears, bent by their dapple freight. 

In graceful taper, pointed to the east. 

Here Autumn sate in ripe luxuriance, 

Brown-eyed brunette, upon the yellow rind. 

We heard her footsteps in the falling leaves. 

And felt her presence in the atmosphere. 

Freighted with fragrance from a thousand fruits, 

And heard her voice shrill-throated in the peas. 

As one hears April in her humming swarms. 

The milk-white fillies, gamboling still, approached 

Two forms not seen before— a girl and boy: 

The first of such slight make and airy shape, 

I had conceived the tender beams of day 

Did rise in sentient form to fill the scene 

Thro' Ariel's quaint devices, till I saw 

Soon afterward the rosy, seashell hand 

Of that sweet girl put gently toward the colts, 

Who mouth'd the little gem with modesty 

Ingenuous as the first-born thought of love 

Upon the cheek of Cupid, and, as near 

They came to where we stood (they knew it not). 

The noble youth, in cadence sweet of tone. 

Spoke fitly to the maiden in these words: 



I heard a little sermon, Lou, 
'Twas underneath a holly bush; 
The preacher was a timid thrush, 
And all his thoughts were bright and new. 

43 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

II 

His text was Love^ his preaching Praise^ 
His pulpit was an under limb. 
Nor did his Muse essay to climb 
Starward, in e'en his highest lays. 

Ill 

" He preacheth well, who loveth well/' 

Was all he knew of eloquence; 

He eyed me as an audience. 

And seemed to think me 'neath the spell. 

IV 

Beneath the spell so magic-wrought; 
His style was earnestness — his eye 
Unlike the lightning of the sky, 
A reflex more of joy than thought. 



A world of joy, yet it seem'd hard 
To sever from the singing sea 
The few bright drops he gave to me, 
Marked with the coinage of the bard. 

VI 

For fierce did he gesticulate,. 
Which show'd the inward power he felt; 
Yet never for a moment dwelt 
On doctrines of Free Will and Fate. 

44 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

VII 

Chaste minister of love and joy! 
Thoult be my future pulpiteer. 
Thy sermons please the listening ear, 
And fill the heart without alloy. 

Then looking up like one who wisely keeps. 
The things he prides in most to show the last. 
Said Irvin, *' To my wife's dominions come, 
Perhaps her works are worthier to be seen." 
And first we came upon the dairy-house, 
Near by a copious limpid mountain spring. 
And to the knee in water; — brown-stone jars, 
Fill'd with the yellow wealth of unskimm'd milk. 
Stood to the rim in crystal, icy cool; 
And golden butter on a shelf near by. 
In alien jars, with neat curd presses sat. 
Whose lifted lids disclosed the snowy forms. 
But now the beautiful old lady came 
And said, "I've had no luck this year — no luck 
(At least, as once I had) with eggs and milk; 
The good old times are gone: hens lay so ill; 
Nor even is wheat so good as once it was 
For raising, and I cannot make good bread; 
Though well I might have spar'd to tell you so. 
Since I am 'shamed to know you tasted it 
Twice at my table, and last night you said 
Much had you heard about my fame for bread; 
Well, once I had, but now my hand is out, 
Though Irvin thinks the fault is in the flour. 
And puts the blame upon the mills that bolt. 
More guarding the ' how much ' than the * how well.' 
Alack! eight years ago this very fall, 

45 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Our little mill was burn'd one luckless night. 

By accident some say — ^perhaps it was; 

But none who knows Jem White, and his old hate 

For Irvin Ernes, would believe it, sir. 

Well, let that be; the mill stood over there 

On yonder little streamlet — you can't see 

The spot for that down-drooping apple-bough; 

And since that time, so heavy was the loss, 

Irvin has not been able to repair it. 

You ask of cheese: why once I made to sell. 

But now I barely make enough for use; 

And, but for butter, surely I would have 

No wherewithal for little odds and ends; 

And even of butter I have not this year — 

Or barely have — a full supply in shuck." 

(All which she said as musing to herself.) 

" Last year I lost three fine calves in one day. 

All by one stroke of lightning. Didst never see 

Butter in shuck .^ Then please to step this way. 

And I will show you." Toward a bin she led. 

And taking out what seem'd an ear of corn 

Unhusked, and stripping down its leaves, disclosed 

The butter and the process — such a work 

And wonder as the neatest bird's nest is. 

" See on an upper shelf these sealed jars. 

They are my jellies (various sorts) and jams. 

Some three years old — some made last year, some 

this." 
And when I asked to see her plum preserves^- 
" I sent the last of my last jar last week 
To Abner White, old Jem White's oldest son, 
Who's been at death's door quite a twelve month 

now. 

46 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

So much I gave away (and some I sold). 

That only half a jar remained last week. 

Dost see that double row of jugs up there? 

The first is filled with honey — you shall see it 

After a little while; and now I'd show 

My make of wine, pressed from the Scuppernong, 

And ten years old this fall; ten — no, eleven; 

But lift me down that slim necked demijohn. 

And you shall taste it." Here she filled 

A glass with liquor, beading to the brim. 

Which, breathing her good name, I slowly quaffed; 

And what she said or show'd me afterward, 

I cannot state with such exactitude; 

In fact, I did the talking mostly then. 



GOETHE AND FREDERICA 

The poet Goethe, while a student at Berlin or Leipsic, 
paid a visit on a lovely spring morning to the cottage of 
the Protestant minister in the rural village of Sessenheim. 
He had arrived but a few minutes, and was sitting in de- 
lighted harmony with the idyllic season, when suddenly 
and unannounced, the second daughter of the minister, 
Frederica, came tripping in from the fields. The sudden- 
ness of her appearance, the charming ndweti of her maid- 
enly confusion, her tasteful adornment in field flowers, and 
(presiding over all) her angelic beauty, charmed his poetic 
fancy, and made captive his unworthy heart. The young 
poet returned to student-life a devout worshipper (as he 
believed) and a betrothed lover. But alas for the incon- 
stancy of man! In a short time Frederica, in company 
with her mother, came to the city; and determined to ap- 

47 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

pear to Goethe in the simple rustic habit in which she had 
won his love. But she had misunderstood his nature. 
The jewel was out of its appropriate setting; Miranda 
was no longer upon the charmed Island. The fearful 
truth of her desertion was soon made plain, and the truth 
still more fearful to one of her loyalty of the utter want 
of moral nobility of him whom she loved — and must love 
through life — ^without return. Apologists for Goethe have 
endeavored to blacken the character of Frederica, as the 
only excuse for his baseness; but she is vindicated in the 
mouth of history as the purest and noblest of women. 



A POET^ in his gentle youth^ 
With deftest foot^ and lithest limb. 
And seeming grace of maiden ruth. 
With which the Nine had gifted him, 
One morning to a cottage came — 
Goethe that morn at Sessenheim. 

II 

It was the sweetest April-time, 
And bee-swarms humm'd about the trees, 
And Nature's voice, in silver rhyme. 
Received fresh cadence from the bees; 
And something of the outward cheer 
Bespoke the poet's welcome there. 

Ill 

Then freshly from the fragrant field, 
Frederica came in rustic dress. 
And gleesome in the cot she reeled, 

48 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

With pendent hat and loosened tress; 
And Goethe^ quick as stars do shoot. 
Had caught the charm from brow to foot. 

IV 

That classic foot and ankle rare. 
So slender in its Naiad-grace; — 
But stopping with a modest air — 
Confused light broken o'er her face 
In little swirls and eddies — she 
Acknowledged Goethe graciously. 



And Goethe thought he then beheld 
In her great eyes the forming mind. 
That doth in one sweet being weld 
The uncouth passions of our kind. 
O love, she walks in strophes — she 
Is all embodied melody! 

VI 

He marked the sweetness of her face, 
The simple thought, the modest word. 
And motions of a childish grace, 
Asf flitting as a nesting bird; 
And her rich will he felt and saw. 
As God designed, a poet-law. 

VII 

There is such music in her words 
As winds along the slender streams; 
Her laughter, like the song of birds, 

49 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Thrills thro' the sense of rosy dreams; 
And all day long four proud words ring 
In her queen-heart — " My king^ my king! " 

VIII 

They skirt the borders of the field. 
Where brawny bare-arm'd workmen move, 
Fronting the sunrays without shield; 
Throughout the fragrant morn they rove 
To gather flowers about the ridge. 
And twine and knot them on the bridge. 

IX 

They pass where in the even tide. 
The limping hare steals to the verge 
Of forest shadows, spreading wide. 
And sombre-suited to the dirge 
Of evening winds that seem to fall 
Beneath the herdsman's droning call. 

X. 

They reached an oak — a place of tryst; 

And, weeping, take delicious leave; 

The future skies are amethyst. 

And who with such bright hopes could grieve? 

O maiden, on thy perfect soul 

Too soon the waves of scorn shall roll! 

XI 

Deserted in thy peerless truth; 
Forgotten in thy maiden grace; — 
The light divine of early youth 

50 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Could never wholly leave thy face: 
A maiden thou wert blessed to be. 
With works thy angel-progeny. 



THE PENCIL 

Last night my little girl cried naughtily 

To take the pencil from my eager hand; 

And afterward with willful impudence. 

And heedless of my wish, began to mark. 

With most exquisite awkwardness and craft. 

Mid covert glances at me, on the leaves 

Of Tennyson which I had just put down 

To look for parallels. Despite my prayers. 

My despot darling neither would give up 

My pencil nor my poems; — nor would mark 

Upon the fly-leaves white and beautiful, 

And which did seem to tempt her budlike hand, 

But on the sweetest poems: all my flowers. 

Bee-like, she wantonly defaced and bruised, 

Tho' getting not the golden honey-bread. 

Nor dainty honey delicately sealed, 

And filling with just measure all the cells. 

In ' Dora,' * Morte d' Arthur,' * Maud,' * The Brook,' 

Lucid * CEnone,' and the 'Lotos Eaters'; 

So turning to my pictures, I had lost. 

Just for a moment, that arch impudence. 

Which sat upon her sweet expressive face. 

Like some rare bird upon the point of flight; 

And when I looked again the bird had flown; 

The book lay open at * The Beggar Maid,' 

Which bore some marks of strange entanglement, 

51 



I ■ ^:'::--\\-'::::,c::^wm 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

The work of naughty pencil. By its side 
My darling lay in tiny magnitude; 
Bound by sweet cords of gentle influence; 
The pearly throat hid 'neath the cluster'd gold; 
The creasy arm thrown back; the snowy hand 
Half-opened like an April rose-bud; — there 
Beside it leaning on one finger lay 
That edged tool the pencil. 



A THOUGHT 



I SAW two little waves of cloud 

Start out upon the upper air; 
They met with storms and thunders loud 

i^d lightning's weird-like glare. 
But passed away and calmly left 

An amethystine rainbow there. 

II 

Thus^ thought I, 'tis when in their course 
The spacious clouds of mind collide; 

When darkness crowns the universe. 

Thought-lightnings radiate deep and wide. 

And as the waves roll back is seen 
A rainbow fashioned by the tide. 



52 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



ROCKWOOD FOREST 

While Clodius stood beneath the chestnut trees. 

Watching the morning clouds to catch perchance 

A prescience of the morrow, a light step 

Came gently to the woodhorse at his side, 

A white hand stole upon his shoulder where 

The sunny curls would bend in touching it — 

The blithesome Lula. A faint cry suddenly. 

So faint that Clodius scarce could make it out. 

Came on the soft winds loitering at their doors. 

Whereat she flitted like an eager thrush 

That leaves the twig a-tremble; but was back 

Ere yet her husband had recalled the glance 

That followed her lithe figure to the door. 

So looking in his sunburnt face she asked — 

" Dear Clodius, do you think 'twill rain ? Is there 

A shelter in the forest or hard by 

For those who cannot brave the elements? 

There should be, Clode." The husband made reply — 

" No shelter formed by man, but God hath placed 

Trees in near neighborhood, whose branches meet. 

And ample foliage in the depth of June 

Affords a passing shelter." The young wife 

Dropt her sweet head in sudden flush of thought. 

And looked so flower-like as young Clodius turned 

His great brown eyes upon her, that he smiled. 

For this bright city-girl with peerless love 

For her proud lover, country-bred and brown'd. 

Yet peerless as her love, had left the courts, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Transplanted to the meadow by the copse, 

Where wrens make love to daisies. One short year. 

Touching the forest to its wondrous life. 

And barring with slow steps the autumn gates. 

Rounded the first link of their wedded life. 

Welding it with a rosy rivet. Here 

The young wife yearned for distant forest-walks; 

And passing over sweet brown autumn fields, 

She sat down tired upon the brink of rills. 

Or leant a moment on the oaken bars 

To gaze on woodland pictures. From the path 

Worn in the hard earth like a piece of art. 

She often turned, alleging that her feet 

Were better torn and bruised than innocent birds, 

God's true parishioners, should want their meals ; 

And when the sparrows flew from her light steps 

She wept to think her merely human form 

Struck such deep central fear in gentle hearts, 

Which all the true divinity of love 

Could not overtake nor countervail. Pair'd doves 

In April walked beside her gentle steps 

Upon the tender shadows in the lawns. 

Because the subtle season made them kin. 

Or from her white extended hand took grains 

In graceful poise upon their snow-white wings. 

•X- "X- * 

And oftentimes had Clodius promised her, 
In that bright city home, ere yet she was 
The crowned queen of Rockwood, pleasant days 
In mazy rambles in the unpath'd wilds 
Of Rockwood Forest. Now the day is fixed. 
When the thrice lovely mother grows perplexed 
With dread to leave her babe, and fear that rain 

54i 




POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Will spoil their eager frolic. Now they touch 
The forest margin. Warding hands put forth 
Lift up the yielding outer limbs which serve 
To hem the leafage. Onward thro' the gloom 
Like twilight figures on a Scottish heath 
They vanish 'mid the nestling branches. Here 
Upon a rugged mountain chain they halt 
At Nature's bidding to drink in the sweets 
Of blended song and bloom. Quaint and rare 
And novel was the picture stretching forth: 
For hillocks all about the place were roughs 
And rambling paths ran glittering down the slopes 
In mazy circles deeply cut^ foot-worn^ 
Upon the dizzy verge of frowning peaks^ 
And passed thro' nutty coverts green and cool. 

* ^ -x- 

Then Clodius bade the servant coming near 
To get the luncheon and prepare them seats 
Beneath a forest-apple by the ledge 
Wherefrom a fountain sparkled. Circling near 
The wicker basket like a * Table Round ' 
They ate the sacrament of Nature. There 
Could manful heart feel otherwise than bow'd 
In that great temple of the living God? 

•Jf -X- •}{• 

The soft south wind stole gently over them 

And Lula felt a holy influence near 

Like that which breathed o'er Moses at the Mount 

Of Horeb, when before his purged eyes 

The bush bloomed out in unconsuming flames. 

Around them came the little poet-bee. 

With broken music, but right perfect work. 

And perched upon a maiden forest-bloom, 

55 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

That falling with sweet blushes sought to hide 
Amid the soft warm grasses at their feet. 
And guard from the rough touch of hurtful power 
The untasted honey of her virginhood. 

* * * 

Tall pines stood by with gnarled underlimbs, 
Where gay young squirrels spent their sunny hours 
In featly pleasures thro' long leafy lawns 
Of intertwisted branches. Rooks and daws 
Ofttimes alighted near their quiet homes, 
And drown'd their sweet, love-breathed chattering 
With coarse, malicious, loud-mouthed dissonance; 
And peckled winged falcons sought the spot 
For their blood-stained orgies. Grandly up 
The imperial eagle, swimming in the blue. 
Put curve to wing, and lordly, lightly, sat 
Upon some topmost perch to see the day 
Depart in splendor and the night come on. 

•X- * -x- 

Now full of pleas ance as young June herself 
They wander forth to see the waterfall, 
X.eaf-hid, and bounding 'twixt basaltic shafts. 
That look like lovely Naiads seen afar. 
Stayed by some mystic spell upon the brink. 
When they would disappear beneath the wave 
From the unholy scrutiny of man; 
For even so the legend long had run — 
That these had lived a thousand years ago 
In the league-hidden ocean, where they dwelt; 
But rank and power frowned on their tender hopes. 
And here, by love impelled, they came to drink 
The cup of passion in its secret bliss. 
The damsel's kingly father, sorely vex'd, 

56 



POEMS BY PETER J. M ALONE 

Sought out the truant lovers with sure steps. 
And marked their rural refuge in the wood 
Imbrowned by Autumn. Risen from the depths 
Clear as the beaten foam about the curves 
They stood on either side in the sweet dusk 
Gazing into each other's earnest eyes 
Like breathing statues in the evening light. 

^ -je- -x- 

Alas! their joy is broken; for the king, 
With frown-fix'd front and fearful curse came forth 
Towards the fear-struck fairies. ** Never more,'* 
Hoarsely he hissed betwixt his grated teeth, 
** Move from the spot; atone for this deep guilt 
By standing the fix'd scorn of coming time ! " 
And even as he spake, they twain became 
Transmuted into everlasting rock. 

^ * * 

Now by the deepening of the forest gloom 

They felt the near approach of night, and back 

Began to thread their pathless course. Above 

Long lines of curlews moving westwardly 

Glimmered with silver radiance in the light. 

And passed away beyond the waning verge; 

When Clodius shouting, ' Look ! ' all eyes were up 

Feeding upon the cloudscape with its lines 

Of gold and silver; but when afterwards 

They thought to journey onward, all were seized 

With blank confusion; shrub, nor hill, nor stream 

Awaking in their minds familiar sense. 

Revealed the way. So groping randomly 

(For night appearing, all the forest gloomed 

Dark as the chambers of a Sybil's cave). 

A little farther on they touched a spot 

57 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Breathing of fenny fogs, thick-veiled and foul. 

The fell resort of outlaw beasts and birds. 

Where burly vines, lock'd with a rough man's 

strength 
About the lordly elms and oaks, forbade 
All passage. And as on the verge they stood 
Of that most rustic Malebolge, the night 
Came o'er it like a pestilential curse. 
They heard the bird-of-omen's hated screech. 
And when they moved them in the tufted grass. 
Great routed serpents crawling lustily 
With hell-hot hisses and wild angry eyes. 
Glared back from many a quickly wreathed coil 
Upon the intruders, who stood fix'd like stone. 
And feared to breathe each other's names and ask 
The comfort of sweet counsel in their strait. 
And how they feared if any had been hurt 
In that uncertain moment. 

Soon the stars 
Upon the moonless tenebration shone; 
And Clodius, finding Ursa Major, fix'd 
His certain course by that grand stellar point. 
And safely brought his friends to light and home. 



ASPHASIA PERCY 

Lord Dover: 

Now curse loud chanticleer whose wanton horn 
Breaks the night's seal before the peep of morn; 
The feathered Gabriel of our temporal night. 
Waking the world by instinct of the light, 

58 






POEMS BY PETER J, MALONE 

He drives away sleep's angel from my bed. 

Whose heavy-laden wings above my head 

Flutter all night, importunate as thieves 

That creep thro' dangerous paths o'er rustling leaves ; 

And bring fresh odors, like the April showers. 

Whose subtle magic bursts the conscious flowers, 

And is as quickly broken, when upon 

The tender scene shines out the vernal sun. 

For deeply curtained in my downy bed. 

The soft rich moonlight gently o'er me spread, 

I snugly think (though nothing like the sight 

Of snow without can make a cozy night) 

In the deep drifts of my white bed, that soon 

I shall be woven in a soft cocoon. 

Enjoying eight-hours' paradise from cares. 

And sweeter sleep than e'er the riotous years 

Bestow on mortals — 

Aspasia Percy: 

Yet the priceless zest 
Your hours derive from some immortal guest. 
By whose high nature you were lifted up. 
Since first you tasted the celestial cup. 
Now even from my childhood have I been 
Attended by white throngs none else have seen; 
With whom sweet converse in the cool green way 
(For all is cool and green where angels stray) 
I've held for hours, like one whom prayer o'erwhelms, 
Within the glory of ideal realms. 
A voice from clear, sun-bosomed Italy 
Hath kissed my ear with subtle melody. 
Bound in the whirled winds, as I divine. 
Since of the truth I have no human sign, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

That Maurice^ my own beautiful, is dead. 

And finds long resting for his tired head, 

Beside the grave of young John Keats, amid 

Home's ruins, shadowed by the pyramid 

Of Cestius. Yet I weep not, for in life 

Our tie was earthly, although I, his wife, 

X.oved him the more while feeling that a day 

Would lift our loves beyond the ills of clay. 

Into a life supernal where the mind 

Is throned with God forever, unconfined; 

And I am blessed with power to feel and know 

My Maurice's presence in his robes of snow. 

Kind friends may censure me as light and vain. 

And think me courting sorrow's honied pain. 

Listening to each light voice a garrulous cloud 

Sends forth by Melancholy, lotus-browed; 

Still in my deep-veiled sadness dwells a faith. 

Unmoved by all the heedless scoffer saith. 

That Maurice is an angel; and I know 

1^0 bliss so priceless as my perfect woe. 

Not dead.'' He promised when he left for Rome, 

Devoutly in his pine-girt idyl home. 

As in his heart he bore us all, to live 

Ideally, and on each day to give 

The scanty alms that would remind him there 

Of all most holy and endearing here. 

And yet no missive from his hand I've seen 

Since first the woods put on their vernal green; 

And sure he had been back before the ides 

Of March rolled up their thunder-breathing tides; 

But that he lives now only in his boy. 

My body weeps of grief — ^my soul of joy. 



60 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



THE SPIRIT OF POETRY 

Upon the Indian wave there rides 

A bark of light and graceful motion; 
Whether against or with the tides, 

She seems a spirit of the ocean. 
And restless as a star, she seeks 

The greenest coves of fairest countries, 
And sails through sweet spring-hearted weeks — 

As I have seen a queenly huntress 
Upon her white steed sweep the wold 

O'er many a mazy undulation. 
Through amber jets and spurts of gold. 

And nameless glories of creation. 
And slender naiads by myriad streams 

Send forth their rushlights with orisons. 
And watch afar the flickering gleams 

Until upon the soft horizons, 
They faint and fade, or vaguely die 

Into the mellow orange gloaming. 
Or sink before the dreamless eye 

Beneath the young wave's playful foaming. 
So many hopes go after her. 

So many dreams she richly guerdons; 
To twenty ports she carries myrrh, 

But countless are the grievous burdens 
Lightened, and e'en made sweet to souls 

That erst had borne them with sore 'plaining. 
And although at her nameless goals 

She anchors not, all own a gaining. 

61 



^'':^' m;''-'''^''7'"WWi 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

So passing o'er melodious seas. 

She holds her quiet course, league-hidden, 
Along low-lying Hebrides, 

Where craft hath seldom safely ridden; 
Till running by the ungainly hull 

Of some storm-driven Norwegian whaler. 
That mocks and jeers the beautiful 

Light bark, without a sail or sailor;— 

But still the splash of silver oars 
Lighter than ripple of Eurotas 

Carries the bark to alien shores 
With freight diviner than the lotus; 

So round the world for evermore. 
Without a sail or sailor going; 

Young spirits bend them to the oar. 
And hence the fleetness of her rowing. 



BRANDENBURG 

Here, said my guide, upon this russet mound 
The Lord of Chreenheld fought Brandenburg 
From early morning till the blazing noon 
Rolled up the airy curtains of the brooks; 
When from the shining water naiad forms 
Rose freshly radiant, blithe, amid a shower 
Of yellow ringlets meeting at their waists 
The crystal vestment of the burnished wave. 

* -x- * 

This Chreenheld was long king hereabouts. 
And ruled with all the grandeur of a king, 
A scion on the mighty stem of Thor, 
Not one who rose on eagle's wings of fate 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

To highest knightship; for all noblest shows 
Of valorous knighthood in the tournament, 
Or on fame's true highways, the rougher paths 
Of fabulous adventure, this good land 
Was never equalled, nor has after reign 
Surpassed King Chreenheld's. He was a lad. 
Orphan of fortune (doubtful of descent 
Only in Slander's reckoning and vague thought) 
Son was he of a stalwart knight and king. 
Proud hope knit in the fibre of his youth 
That as he grew to fame became a faith; 
For know, Grimhalen was his early name. 
Baptismal pledge to infant Chivalry, 
Wherewith he worked the secret charms of earth 
In central darkness of the Northern mines. 
And either in the long lapse since his reign. 
Or 'neath the potency of Whul supreme. 
His name the barbarous roughness long hath lost 
In sweeter polish than the Sultan's gems' 
Beneath the touch of Time: 'tis true of all. 
For names rough when they proudly pealed and rang 
First o'er the hurrying flags of victor hosts, 
Are cut by sharp attrition, running through 
The slow mill of the varying aftertime; 
And seem the outcome of most perfect art. 
Embodying sweetest music like the shell 
Of soft brovioi spots and whorl of dainty pink. 
Even then great genius was attest in him. 
And noble nature broadening to the claims 
Of stormy exigence. Yet was he bred 
Untaught, as children of the boorish clans, 
'Mid vices like foul-footed cubs a-snarl. 
And savage customs of the ancient mines; 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

So that but for same holy, unseen hand. 

Swift as a moving storm-impregned cloud. 

To keep the rugged virtues of his race 

Before his unpurged sight, his early soul 

Even in the first bud of his babyhood. 

Had taken the beast's impression or the dwarf's — 

Monstrous or mean. 

^ * * 

First coming on the ground, bold Chreenheld 
Strode round it calmly like a noble knight. 
Yet with a fitting sternness in his mien. 
The bloom and fruitage of his knightly stem. 
Beside him hung his charmed broadsword, Whul, 
Wherewith he won the great Mountleaven Hoard, 
Which gave him crown, and jewels for his crown. 
And acreage on many a river's brim 
Throughout an empire likewise all his own; 
And scarce had he a fitting station found. 
Adjusted belt and tried his trusty lance. 
When looking up his eyes an eagle spied. 
Wheeling about an amethystine cloud. 
His plumage bathed in early light of morn. 
The king's face told he read a sign, and soon 
A long gray feather fluttered to his feet: 
" Ay, fortune sends a champion plume again 
While yet great Whul is snugly sheathed, nor foe 
In sight or hearing. Hark! a lusty neigh 
From some o'erhasty charger, greets the spot. 
His instinct telling what his lord would see. 
Hither my steed ! " Then lightly to his seat 
The doughty knight leaped with a falcon's spring. 
And waited, lance in rest, while up the ascent 
Came armed hoofs with iron clang of scorn 

64 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

That sharply pierced to all the little glens. 
Which loyally felt the insult to their king 
And hurled it back in echoes on the foe. 

* ^ ^ 

Now ere a palmer could recount a score, 

The two great foes had met with fearful clash 

And iron clang of armour. Back the steeds 

Fell to their haunches like the seated hills 

Gigantesque bearing on their fronts a growth 

Taller than cedars of famed Lebanon; 

And when they closed again the royal lance 

Lay like a broken purpose at their feet 

With Brandenburg's crossed o'er it — fatal sign! 

First fruits of victory for the Stranger. Yet 

Again like gods, with bolted hands, they come 

To the resounding shock, with whirling axe 

That crashed thro' brazen breastplates and ribbed 

steel. 
Shivering the rivets as the woodman hews 
Long strips of bark from hickory or from oak; 
And thus with stroke and counter-stroke they fought 
For two gaunt hours over this herbless plot. 
Scarred by the fiery hoof and wet with gore; 
Yet not one instant were the ruins of Mars 
Checked by the sweet white hand of Chivalry, 
But every object seated near the spot. 
Glowing and breathing with the knightly ire. 
Shrieked back the flame-winged echoes of their 

words 
In fearful cadence with the clash of arms; 
Till Chreenheld, incensed at what he deemed 
The unknightly conduct of his stalwart foe. 
Rose, lightly whirling his rude axe, and dashed 

65 



^'■V^,V.i/='*°»1>"V!-;/ 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

The horse of Brandenburg to ground; but he 
With lighter limbs and defter movements rose. 
And dealing on the king a deadly hurt 
In an unguarded part, made sudden end 
Of that famed joust, the seed of greater things* 
Then standing meekly by the fallen knight, 
Sad, as if touched by sense of something wrong. 
Something unworthy, he the victor came, 
And spoke with womanly tenderness of word: 
" I burn with shame, great sire, in the recall 
Of my unholy and unknightly heat 
That closed my eyes to all the gentle rules; 
But it would grieve me worse than death itself 
If thou shouldst deem unknightly thy sad fall; 
Say then, have I procured thee death, great king. 
Of honor and of glory — ^the^ fit close 
Of a pure life and noble — full of fruits. 
Immortal actions? which I shall proclaim 
Where'er I j oust in veiled years to come. 
As knightliest, noblest, best.-* 

Then the great /king: 
** Right well I feel your perfect faith) proud knight. 
And thanks, thanks, thanks '* (he with fast-failing 

breath) 
For this most proud and worthy end. My throne 
By my just death is empty left, and thou 
I name as my successor. Take this sword. 
It bears a charmed temper swift and keen. 
Lengthening five paces in the deadly thrust 
And giving ten men's strength to every stroke; 
But let it not supplant the nobler steel 
Of our most glorious brotherhood. Behold 
I did not draw it even in my ire, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Else hadst thou withered as the luckless weed 
Before the mower. But thou art a knight. 
And take my steed for thine which I have slain. 
And take my crown for having slain myself, 
And mount my throne; for saith the chronicle, 
' Whoso o'ercometh me shall be my heir.' " 



BY THE SEA 

Oh, let me roam in my unquiet hours 

Beside the tranquil, mist-enwreathen sea; 
For great Apollo there restores the powers 

Overwrought, with magic-breathed serenity; 
The sweet fresh morning, the blue dim expanse 
Of cloudless sky — Oh! for one rapturous glance 
To feed the soul from Nature's infinite 
Great source, where all ethereal thoughts are lit; 
To calm th' unhallowed ire of worldliness. 

And of its thrall my vain soul to divest. 
To be once more a little child — e'en child — 
So that I may become a welcome guest 
In those sweet courts, devoid of grief and guile. 
Where budding thoughts in spring perennial smile. 



A MORNING'S RAMBLE 

Just before sunrise, o'er the willowy brook 
I stept as lightsome as a speckled fawn; 
Below, the waters, shying round a stone. 
Dashed in a tiny cataract at its base. 
And piled in thunder snow-white sheets of foam, 

67 






POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Then slipt from sight beneath a covert formed 

Of stubble briers, and long ditch-weeds twined. 

A throstle caroled with shrill sweetness, perched 

In foliage browned by Autumn's sombre hand. 

So that although my eyes went with the song 

Into the very leaves that thrilled with it, 

I caught no outline of the lyrist's form. 

Nor twinkling feather of a lifted wing. 

Then by great willows lightly passing, where 

A scooped basin like a seashell lay 

Filled with bright water, gentle eddies dipt. 

And tide-like, kissed the marge, as drops of dew 

Fell from the pendulous willow twigs above. 

Here, as the silver moments passed, I scared 

The jeweled minnows that like arrows shot 

Athwart the crystal, or slid up against 

The dreamy shadows rolling to the bank. 

On one side burgeoned violets, on one 

An oozy ridge of red upheaven sand. 

O'er which my feet left slight prints filled with ooze, 

Ran in an elbow half across the stream; 

And tripping airily, I wandered now 

Along a cow-path, by a shelving ledge. 

And out into the meadow. Fold on fold 

Of vaporous curtain reaching to the sky. 

And hung upon the streamlet's jutting arm. 

Shut out from sight all form of beast or bird; 

And till a bleated signal warned me where 

To bend my farther steps, I sat me down 

Beside the stile in silence, chipping on 

Its wooden bar. 

The risen sun, then peering loftily. 

Lit with a momentary blaze the tops 

68 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Of tall trees heading a long belt of pines. 
And one stood o'er the hazy meadow, full 
Without a leaf upon its leaden limbs. 
And darkly wreathed with a thin veil of fog. 
Upon its topmost branch, vaguely defined. 
But every moment looking clearer, sat 
A plump brown hawk, and turned a restless eye 
On two brave martins — man and wife^ — ^that fell. 
In quick alternate lightning-flash of wing. 
Upon the strong limbed coward's shifting head, 
WTio in the dim light of the lifted fog 
Looked larger than an eagle. 

High against 
The sun they wheeled, and turning in his rear. 
Struck like successive thunderbolts his head: 
But he, with talons deep-set in the wood, 
And standing firmly rooted like a tree. 
Regarded not the anger of their breasts; 
But deftly springing from his aery seat. 
And spreading leisurely his lusty wings, 
Oceanward like a strenuous skiflp he moved; 
The martins followed him with flapping wings 
And mended blows; and, when above my head, 
I woke the clouds to echoes with a shout; 
Whereat, with vigorous wings he beat the air. 
And rose on high, and passed into the blue. 



69 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



MAY 



We sat dawn in this passage way. 

Just twenty years ago to-night, 
My husband and our daughter May, 

Who gamboled with a step so light 
About her father's chair, she seemed 

As flitting as a little bird; 
One moment on the sight she gleamed; 

The next she was not seen but heard. 

II 

The silver laughter ringing clear 

About the echo-haunted wold. 
Comes back to-night upon my ear. 

With kindred memories manifold: 
The field where many an autumn day 

We rambled by the upper hedge; 
Around the margin of the bay, 

And even to the forest's edge. 

Ill 

And at the blessed fountain there, 
Beyond the lower range of hills. 

We've picnic'd in the summer air. 
Melodious with the flow of rills; 

70 



If 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Until the languors of the noon 

Enwound us in a subtle spell^ 
And brought the rosy troops of June 

To guard us by the charmed well. 

IV 

Those years^ swift rolling as a stream 

Suddenly swollen with heavy showers^ 
Have faded, leaving but a gleam 

Connected with the present hours. 
And May, no more a little maid, 

Though still her curls are rich with gold. 
Wears first to-night an orange braid, 

The votive symbol from of old. 



But she will go away, and then — 

I pity all that loved her so; 
Even to the thrushes in the glen. 

And flowers her young hands set to grow. 
Ah, me, alas ! who loved her well. 

Through all those silver years of bliss — 
Give me, O, God ! the power to dwell 

Back there in life's parenthesis. 



71 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



FOSSIL ART 



I BREACHED a rock beside a rill 

O'ergrown with mass and white with time. 
Whereon the rippling waters still 

Made a melodious rhyme: 
Sad that contemporaneous song 

Should be disturbed by hand of mine, 
I stoop'd to place the parts along 

With pebbles multiplex in throng. 
That every wave that struck the line. 
Might whisper anthems to the shore. 
And dash and sing forevermore. 

II 

But stooping thus, an impress graved 

Upon the fragment met my eye. 
Fresh by pellucid eddies laved — 

An impress and a mystery: 
The young leaf of a hollyhock, 

A chef-d'oeuvre of the quaintest art. 
Traced in the bosom of the rock 
Was brought to light by one rude shock. 

As loved remembrance in the heart. 
Which keeps thro* all despair and ill 
An everlasting impress still. 



73 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



AUTUMN 

Then Autumn came like some full-handed prince, 

Whose train of plumed and framey-breasted spears, 

Bore yellow fruit from every sunbright clime. 

Drooping with over-ripeness from the stem. 

As token for poor hungry human eyes 

Which fain would look, but may not see beyond 

Into the mute, unwritten, unbegun 

To-morrow of this bounded human life. 

And he, the prince, with yellow girlish locks 

Pure as earth's veined gold, deep and undelved. 

And with the light of well-developed man. 

In his full eye, and perfect grace of limb. 

Now with his doughty retinue doth play; 

Which, as great strength disburdened suddenly 

Thro' loving Summer's toil and Autumn's rest. 

Did grow as sportive as a flock of lambs 

That bask in Spring's first bud-begetting sun 

The merry joy of childhood in the veins. 

And here they set their feast across the land. 

Upon the sward thro' all the range of hills. 

And on the grasses by the river brims. 

Amid a sunbred atmosphere of balm. 

And all the himgering world invited come. 

And sit them down each by some boyish tree. 

Whose thin-leaved shade, inwrought with spots of 

sun. 
Make cozy carpets for long weary feet; 
And others sit on dangerous precipices 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Feeling a need in their coarse, sensuous lives 

Of some wild dash of danger in their joys. 

To edge sensation. 

And birds of voice sit near by in the groves. 

Complaining loudly of so brief a life. 

Which passing scanty seasons, days and months. 

Meets but one glorious Autumn in the round; 

By which the body, bound by harvest winds. 

Begins to loosen from its earthly stem. 



ALWAYS 



Always fishing in the abyss. 
Where the mines of ages are. 

For some deeply buried treasure. 
Or an undiscovered star. 

Mighty deed or thought sublime — 
Always fishing, always fishing 

On the rugged shore of time. 

II 

Planting, as the germs their prison 
Burst and shoot to heaven inclined; 

Thoughts like moons new-coined have risen 
On the horizon of the mind. 

And I cherish them and keep. 
Always planting, always planting 

What an after age may reap. 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

III 

Always fishing by the river. 
Which with music in its flow. 

Rushes onward, and forever 
Mingles everything below: 

Hope with doubt, and joy with pain; 
Soaring angels, creeping serpents. 

Good and evil, make the man. 

IV 

Always seeking, always seeking 
For the path the eagle's eye 

ICnoweth not, the wild-bird's shrieking 
Hinders not with omens nigh. 

Ah! the gold I dig so fine. 
Though a poet and assuager. 

Decorates a worldly shrine. 



I have sought forgotten treasure. 
And the treasure never known; 

And I gave it to the needy. 
Seeing it a gilded stone; 

Gave it when they asked for bread 
For the soul and for the mind — 

Gave, and saw it mock their need. 

VI 

Always preaching, always preaching 
Of the Beautiful and True; 

First unfaithful, yet becoming 
Convert to my preaching too— 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

God of heaven! unclose these eyes. 
And accept from this poor altar 
All it hath, a sacrifice! 

A SERENADE 

The moonlight falls upon the house 
Like blooms from April apple boughs. 
And all the winds of all the Springs, 
Grown old in ceaseless journeyings. 
To-night come moaning by our eaves. 
And sure it seems the myriad leaves 
Have all got lyric tongues between 
Lips dainty as thine own, my Queen! 

■X- * * 

They sing for thee! they sing for thee J 

My darling, O, my spirit's pride! 
What should they do with liberty 

Better than loiter at thy side. 
Like humming-birds about the vine. 
Intoxicate with Summer's wine — 
But could they see thy form, I ween 
They'd leave thee nevermore, my Queen! 



CREATIONS 



He took a little shell. 
Unheeded on the strand; 

He struck it, and there fell 
A music from his hand. 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

The little echo, caught 

Before its breathings died, 

Was fashioned into thought, 
Deep — all-pervading wide! 
* * -x- 

And nations heard and wept. 
And wept and heard, and grew 

Beneath the hand that swept 
The chords, God-loving, true. 

II 

Once a little floweret sprang 

In the sunlight by a brook. 
Where the shrill cicada sang 

In the greenest April nook; 
Where the moss in wild festoons 

Drapes the forms of ancient trees; 
And the owlet sits and croons, 

Talking quaintly to the breeze. 

•X- •){• -x- 

But a soldier, sick with gloom. 

Sorely smitten by a dart. 
Passing plucked the early bloom. 

And the music filled his heart. 

Ill 

So, my girl, be true and kind. 
Making music, tending flowers; 

Oft the poorest mortal mind 

Hath the noblest of God's powers. 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



THE MARTYR POET 

(Suggested by the death of "Charlie Wildwood," Cap- 
tain Samuel Leroy Hammond, who was killed at Port 
Walthal Junction, Va., May, 1864.) 

Gone, art thou, wondrous child of song, 

To realms of bliss on high. 
Where angel-seraphs may prolong 

Thy magic minstrelsy; 
And thoughts attuned to earth's cold fire 
May wake Jehovah's living lyre! 

* * * 

Loved by the noble and the fair. 

The chivalrous and the brave. 
Oh, who had thought so soon thou'dst wear 

The vesture of the grave! 
But brightly beamed the glittering spark. 
And death so loves the shining mark. 

* * * 

Though lost to all life's pleasures now. 

Vain pleasures sink to naught; 
And pallid though that noble brow. 

The mighty dome of thought. 
Still may the living ray divine 
Amid the crumbling ruins shine! 

* -x- * 

A thousand swords unsheathed for life 

To break the mighty spell, 
A prelude to the bloody strife 

Where " V^ildwood " nobly fell! 
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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

A thousand swords! — well might that be! 
Heavens! what a stroke for liberty! 
^ * * 

Long may this mighty power beam forth. 

As ages fleeting by 
Shall raise a tribute to his worth 

To wake the secret sigh. 
That day, let time remember well, 
A hero and a poet fell. 



A WISH 

I'd have thy heart in all its truth. 

Its constancy and pride. 
Its thrill of love, its glow of youth, 

And thee, the beautiful, forsooth. 
Radiant, and jewel-eyed. 
To bless the hours I scarcely feel 
Pass by, so wearily they steal. 

I'd have thy hand! ah me, to ask 
A boon so priceless here; 
To show thee all my heart — unmask 
My crowning wish — for thee the task 

To show a rainbow in each tear 
I've shed for thee — and shed amiss. 
Unless thou'lt quickly answer this. 



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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



THE ARTIST 

Within his attic studio sat a painter. 

Musing upon a gentle maiden's form. 
As if with his great genius he would saint her, 

Making apotheosis in the warm 
And tender potency of peerless art. 
" Ah me ! " he thought, " to bring the hidden heart 
And fair chaste mind upon that suffering brow. 
And paint the past in an eternal now! 
This, this is she — O God! how fresh the flower 
Upon her cheek, as if last evening's shower 
Had left its subtle touch upon it. Well, 
'Tis fearfully real, though a mighty spell 
Overmasters my sick heart, and passion blind. 
The long-pent purpose of my darkened mind. 
That autumn evening mid the harvesters 
We walked along the wheat fields to the firs. 
And sat down in the gloaming by a bank, 
The while my heart doubtingly rose and sank. 
And we talked long, until the curfew tolled, 
When back we wandered from the quiet wold. 
Over the fields, along the beaten path. 
Tender with young shoots of the aftermath. 
Throughout that autumn oft we went and came, 
(Now all those days seem patterns of the same) 
Until the Yule-tide, when the hand of Fate 
Fell on us with a dead and icy weight. 
Her gentle form I have not seen since then. 
And yet have se^a her every hour — ^the glen 
The reapers, and the wheaten fields, and yet— 

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Merciful God! could I but once forget! — 

Said they not that this thrice unholy arm 

Wrought the loved creature sacrilegious harm? 

Alas the day! — the distant now seems near — 

Say, wretched heart, can it have been a year? 

O God! that it should still remain the one 

Grand fact my mind must solely feed upon; 

Never grow old nor seem removed far, 

Nor less — but shining on me like a star 

That sets not — still unconquered by the years, 

Nor expiated by a life of tears. 

For innocent memory is like the sand 

On the seashore: weak as an infant's hand. 

Waves pat it into smoothness. But great crime 

Is the hoar rock on which the waves of time 

Dash, and fall back in impotent, wild shrieks. 

While madly round the foaming thunder breaks. 

But in that niche of honor I shall place her; 

That window with the sweetest light will grace her; 

Even now I see her, — and the evening glare 

Falls potently upon her, making clear 

Expression's noble tenderness and truth 

And matchless graces of eternal youth." 



THE WOOD 

O WOOD, blithe little wood, where oftentimes 
My holiest and my sweetest moments pass ! 
For thou art sacred to me, and enshrinst 
My pure, serene ideal. Here as in 
Some antique chapel, which recalls to age 
Its tender youth, I come to-day, and breathe 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

A two-fold music. Softly twilight throws 

A rich, quaint lustre o'er its plume of brown. 

And in that utter moment I sit here. 

Seeing the dim and talking with the mute. 

For all things here are sentient: in the beam 

Of radiant morning — in the breath of noon, 

That lucid, slender fountain slipping forth 

Gayly and sweetly, like a pure young life. 

Calms my vexed soul with its ethereal tone 

As if confusion could not look upon it — 

So clear, so fresh, so pure — ^without a felt. 

Potential mandate moving o'er its depths, 

" Let there be light ! " And often here I kneel 

To watch the long gleam of the Northern fowl 

Move on the horizon, like a vapory belt 

Of some cloud-clifF in vaguer space beyond, 

Until my soul is wedded to the star 

Which in white splendor peers above the pines 

In silver links of charmed serenity. 

And so my elder-thicket, and my trees. 

Tall, gently-swaying, lightly-breathing, full 

Of wild, sweet rhythms, varying interludes. 

With these I stay in fond converse until 

The stars come to their ancient posts, and bless 

The Heaven-breathed sweetness of our silent love. 

And here I bring my quiet company. 

Poets who elsewhere never could be known; 

Whose obscure thoughts here genially unfold 

Into some meaning subtle or profound — 

Thoughts woven into the sweetest light of earth. 

Taking their native color fresh beside 

The violet's bb^^:*, the elder's white, the pines' 

Majestic statures brooding o'er the hills, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

Like grand, primeval natures: if these awoke 
In the poet's soul inspired harmony, 
Then they alone afford the light whereby 
'Tis felt, and made a part of him who feels. 
Here oftentimes a voice comes from the gleams 
Behind the down, where that wild glade begins. 
And now I know it as a friendly face 
Whose eye enkindles deepest joy. Just so 
Must we love Nature grandly as she is. 
If we would love her as man paints her; for 
Such love hath but one phasis. The poet asks, 
'* Where hath my critic read me ? In a spot 
Endeared by gleam and shadow, tree and vine. 
And gushing fountain by the brook's sweet foam.^ 
Then I bow meekly, knowing in my soul 
That such as feels the subtle power of these. 
Hath all his thoughts set in the germ of truth." 



THE POET'S DREAM 

(to g. h. s.) 

It was the tender matin hour. 

And the young poet's head in gentle pose 
Had the modest lilt of an April flower — 

The snowdrop before the royal rose — 
That stands in the wake of a vernal shower: 
And he heeded not the solemn prayer. 
For his soul-bright eyes in the amber air 
Dwelt sweetly on throngs of jocund youth. 
Not of the living earth, in sooth; — 
And whence.'^ he stopped not to ask his thought, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

For at that moment his arm was caught 
By hand unseen, while whispered words. 
More sweet than the golden flute of birds. 
Assured him of gentleness and ruth 
In the shining ranks of the beauteous youth; 
And he found him at once among and of them. 
Which to be was simply to know and love them, 
For he found in this bright robed company 
The source of divinest poesy. 
Whose words were as sweet as the silver falling 
Of heavenly dews, while the thrush's calling 
Attracts the mortal ear; its merit 
Only the subtle sense of the spirit 
Can know, 'tis the music never heard — 
The soul, not the breath of the builded word. 
So while around the temple straying. 
Like earthly youth in fields a-maying — 
That temple of Heaven's fire-adorning 
And built afresh each golden morning — 
Where poet-lives are consecrated. 
And the greatest have come and humbly waited. 
Through the jasper portals moving slowly 
With feelings reverent, saintly, holy. 
The poet was carried to make his vows 
Beneath the shade of the blossoming boughs 
Where the beautiful company have their house. 
And the tallest and noblest of limb and face, 
A royal one of that heavenly race. 
Placing a wreath on the poet's head. 
Mid delicious silence sweetly said: 
" To the ea^hly a badge of shame and wrong. 
But to us who walk these groves among 
An emblem of noblest truth and worth, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

The spirit of Heaven in the mold of earth. 

Thou wilt build for God in thy joyous days 

With the sweetness of soul-inspiring lays, 

Lo! a most peculiar work is thine 

With the fire of God's great wrath to shine 

On the vice of poverty — ^wealth's disease; 

Or smile with the blessings of love and peace — 

Misknown, misseen, misunderstood. 

And losing the form for the faith of good. 

Thou wilt live for God, and make thy song 

A guide to weakness — reproof to wrong. 

And so weave thy verse that human ears 

May catch vague whispers of unknown spheres; 

For know that the beauty of Heaven may gleam 

In the subtle woof of the poet's theme." 

He ended, and all the angelhood 

Seemed coming out from the olden wood. 

" Amen ! " the golden dream was broken — 

For the last of the solemn prayer was spoken. 



THE GOLDEN SHEAF AND THE UN- 
OPENED BUD 

The flowers are dropping one by one. 
And Autumn sits upon the leaf. 
The reaper with a golden sheaf 

Passed arrow-like an hour agone. 
* * * 

" O pity," said I, as the flood 

(The old man paused upon its verge) 
Resumed its momentary dirge, 

" Thy erring scythe should lop a bud ! " 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

For then I saw among the grain. 

Like jewel undiscovered yet, 

That sheaf's intrinsic amulet 
And such as seldom sheaves contain. 

* * * 

" O, shame indeed that Reaper old, 
And nature-loving, as appears — 
Thy face an index of the years — 

Should break and bruise the opening bud! 

* * * 

" For left, it soon had claimed a birth 
To nobler scenes than yet it saw. 
Nurtured by God, and by His law 

Made up the beautiful of earth." 

* * -jf 

" Ah youth," the old man said, a smile 
Lighting his pale and fleshless cheek, 
" My arm is dexterous, and I make 

No false or cruel stroke the while. 

* * * 

" A more congenial soil will give 
Heaven's radiance to the little gem, 
(For mark! I did not bruise the stem) 

And Christ will water, and 'twill live." 



* MARCELA 

With queenly power of look and word, 

* " Marcela " , is a rhymed account of the well-known 
story in "DoA Quixote." It is an early poem of the 
author. 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

And armed with beauty as a sword. 

She came along the mountain pass, 

A fearless, high-born shepherd lass; 

Her fawn-like footsteps brushed the dew 

From tiny cups of pink and blue. 

The wanton breeze forbore to stir 

Till laden with perfume for her, 

The tribute of her subject flowers 

Fresh from their bath of nightly showers. 

Where wisps of sunshine broken fill 

A bramble archway o'er the rill. 

The grave of Chrysostom below 

Is made where bachelor buttons grow; 

Around it gather groups of hinds. 

While one recites the caustic lines 

Writ by Chrysostom ere bereft 

Of life, the footprints passion left. 

And now 'tis finished; voices heard 

Applaud its bitterness of word — 

One said, " We thought Marcela kind — 

Her cold and iron-hearted find; 

We thought her gentle like the pink — 

Her coarse and arrogant we think; 

We loved her fawn-like ways and frisks. 

Before her eyes were basilisks. 

Ay, beauty's given the iconoclast 

As God gives lightning to the blast." 

" I do not know," Vivaldo said, 

" What reason had the unhappy dead 

For jealousies, suspicious fears — 

The chastest robe that virtue wears 

Might thus be soiled." Ambrosio said, 

" By closest friendship with the dead 

* 87 



POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

I know his hidden thought^ and know 
These strains of most melodious woe 
Put forth no root in real soil. 
But in the wildest figments coil. 
Absence from Marcela had wrought 
The strangest phantasy of thought; 
While that fair maiden plainly dealt, 
And love for him nor feigned nor felt. 
Forever she by lake or wood 
Dwelt with her flocks in solitude. 
Right glad do I disclose this truth 
In witness of her spotless ruth." 

* -X" * 

Now as Vivaldo made to speak. 

The maiden gained a topmost peak. 

And like a star to science new 

She burst in splendor on the view. 

Courtly Ambrosio spoke then: 

" O, beauteous queen of groves and men, 

Didst thou arise from that cold rock 

Bright as an angel, but to mock 

Thy fallen lover, Tarquin-like, 

Or o'er his prostrate form to strike 

The arrows of thy charms in those 

Who stand around, his friends, thy foes? " 

* -x- * 

Now Don Quixote might be seen. 
That glorious knight, all deck'd in green. 
In wonder wrapt. He saw the fair 
Angelic vision poised in air; 
A moment, yhe was clad in steel; 
A moment decked his knightly heel 
With great King Arthur's famous spur, 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

His right hand bore Excalibur — 
And mounted on a dapple-gray. 
With Sancho on a prancing bay. 
Beneath his tread the earth did reel 
(Such power came with his knightly zeal) 
And in a whirlwind of delight. 
He vowed he would become her knight. 
* * * 

Now to the lords of flocks and herds 

A voice melodious as a bird's 

Did speak, while all around grew calm: 

" You call me beautiful : I am. 

'Twas Nature gave me these bright locks. 

And jeweled eyes; and love for flocks 

And love for hills and woodland streams 

Where sunlight in perpetual gleams 

Is Nature's guerdon. There I dwell. 

Nor other love my tongue may tell. 

What! must I all this beauty rend. 

Lest it enthrall some hapless friend? 

Then say ye love must be returned — 

That lover never should be spurned? 

O, sapient judges! tell me true. 

What if a score of goatherds sue 

To me here at Chrysostom's grave 

For love that only one may have? 

How should I soothe so many moods. 

And yet stay wedded to my woods? 

Streams are my loves — my friends the flowers; 

I muse with them through dewy hours. 

And feed the eye, and fill the ear 

With scene and sound as fresh and clear 

As gorgeous Nature doth bestow 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

With summer's most resplendent glow, 
About the sweetest dimple born 
Upon the radiant brow of morn. 

Song, {Marcela sings.) 

I have no bower in lordly halls. 
No maids array my locks of brown, 

But lambkins hear my simple call. 
And near my feet they lie them down. 

Thus, thus, I pass the genial spring 
In coverts by the sounding sea; 

Nor would I give a lamb to bring 
The proudest lover to his knee." 
* * * 

She sang and o'er the mountain lawn 
Stepped back as lightsome as the fawn. 
Now the brave Don whose knightly soul 
Could brook no longer tame control. 
Seeing the vision fade, spoke loud. 
In the ear of that unknightly crowd, 
" Let no base churl attempt to seek 
The fair Marcela, or I'll wreak 
Vengeance upon his head outright. 
As sure as I'm La Mancha's knight ! " 

SELF MURDER 
Dead in the banquet hall! 
Pale and lifeless and cold! 
The joust of music, the mirthful call. 
And flying feet .in the princely ball 
Are echoed from the wold. 
And the dancers they halt to hear a health. 
And the sparkling wine flows high; 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

But a footstep marks the light by stealthy 

As lightning marks the sky — 

A whisper fills the room. 

Sepulchral, passionless, weird — 

Foretells the approach of a mystic groom^ 

Holding the shining keys of doom — 

For only one prepared. 

And he, at the shadowy gate, 

Appointed a tryst at eve — 

Appointed, and fashioned, and filled his fate 

Ere they knew of his mind to leave. 

O! the shining dagger near 

As the trailing spectre goes! 

O! the beautiful, gore-beclotted hair, 

The failing, eloquent light — ^the stare — 

Dead, dead in his bridal clothes! 

RESIGNATION 

SONNET 

Grief hath a hallowed meaning to the heart, 

'Tis oft the bridge a weak and faithless eye. 

Misled by vanity and evil art. 

Essays in the dim distance to descry; 

And straightway whispers to the vexed soul — 

Ere yet it sees the murky waters roll 

Beneath its parapets — ^vile coward words 

As one might fancy from such flocks of birds' 

As know their enemies by instinct. Yet 

'Tis in my course. I reach it, and forget 

My bitter curses in the glad surprise. 

Confessed by tears in my awakened eyes. 

O, such is faith: 'tis neither strong nor bright 

Until we have the blessing full in sight! 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 



THE PRISONER 

A FRAGMENT 

The prisoner sat down in his gloomy cell 

A cold November evening, and it seemed 

That all the past came o'er him, and he dreamed 

Of times gone by — he even heard the bell 

Which rang in his wild youth — an instant only — 

For then, aroused, he felt so chill and lonely ; 

As if the evil of his heedless life. 

With broken faith to stranger and to wife. 

Had been concentered in that one day's space; 

The smallest deeds set down with time and place 

Had now become accusers, judges, all. 

With liberty and changing scene, their thrall 

He thwarted long; though now, with cruel stress. 

Their company thrice damn his loneliness. 

FRAGMENTS 

Thy beautiful eyes, my dearest. 
Look ever through thy tears; 
And the golden locks thou wearest. 
The glory of thy years. 
Do yet so grace thee, darling. 
In tiny, delicate curls. 

(Describing a storm just after evening twilight.) 

And now the black host thunders by 

With din of insect minstrelsy; 

We hear stern voices in the sky 

Commanding dread artillery — 

That sky now filled with echoing peals. 

And clouds curled up from chariot wheels. 

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POEMS BY PETER J. MALONE 

A brisk wind landward blew all afternoon. 
And floored the harbor with light curved waves, 
Like seashells lined with ethereal gold. 
And formed for Naiad halls in midmost depths 
Of the league-hidden ocean. Stately ships 
Rode lightly at their anchor on the bar. 
Beyond that long white line of foam a barque 
Loomed into view with slender masts, and sails 
Bent snowily upon the wing o' the gale. 

* * * 

Now fancy sits with folded wings. 
While evening walks beside the rills. 
And in the leafy wood, that rings 
With deep wild notes of whip-poor-wills; 
And dusk's dim wing doth nestle there 
While yet 'tis daylight otherwhere. 

* * -x- 

I have in mind a little quiet glade. 

Fenced round with hills, an ancient neighborhood. 

Where fountains sparkle in the dreamy shade 

And wind and glisten through the fragrant wood. 

The squirrel there comes forth with sportive din. 

And, mid sweet riot, out of reach of harm. 

To crack the dainty filbert doth begin. 

But soft! he hears us, and in mad alarm. 

With lusty leap, attains the topmost limb. 

And now is lost. Below us runs the brook 

Mid broken reeds where silver trout do swim 

And the young grayling. O, deep-nested nook! 

Where fledgeling genius may lie softly down 

In dream ecstatic of the future crown. 



93 



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NOV 12 1909 



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